The mass estimation for a vehicle is known. For more details on mass estimation for vehicles, see Bae et al., “Road Grade and Vehicle Parameter Estimation for Longitudinal Control Using GPS”, 2001 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference Proceedings, Oakland, Calif., Aug. 25-29, 2001 and Holm, “Vehicle Mass and Road Grade Estimation Using Kalman Filter”, MSc Thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering, Sweden, August 2011, both publications incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
While algorithms for estimating the mass of a vehicle are known, the application or use of such information is limited. With certain vehicles, mass estimation is used in the control of onboard Automated Braking Systems (ABS). Other than for braking control, however, the Applicant is not aware of other uses or applications for mass estimation information, either onboard or sharing with other vehicles or data centers.